


no such fearful thing

by afearsomecritter (jsaer)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), UnDeadwood (Web Series)
Genre: Animal Death, Church Grim!Mason, Gen, Non Graphic, UnDeadwood, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-12 23:00:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21233990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jsaer/pseuds/afearsomecritter
Summary: Funny thing about this new territory was that shit got abandoned quick. Mines dried up, or one too many instances of bad luck rolled in, and a town was abandoned. This included the churches and their attendant graveyards. And their church grims.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All y'all at the UnDeadwood discord are ENABLERS thank you

Funny thing about this new territory was that shit got abandoned quick. Mines dried up, or one too many instances of bad luck rolled in, and a town ceased to be. This included the churches and their attendant graveyards.

Sometimes the graveyards were small enough and the people attached enough that they took their dead with them when they left.

This happened when a tiny town, not big enough for the name, had a string of simple bad luck, and no incentive to stick it out. 

So everyone left.

The church had actually been older than the rest of the town, built by English settlers with some very, very old traditions.

(the dog had been good and young and strong and barely felt the knife)

\--

But before everyone left-

\--

The first person who saw the dog was a child, curled among the headstones. A broad muzzle gently nudged a tear stained cheek as tiny fingers wound into dense fur. The dog stayed with the girl until her black clad mother came calling, and vanished when the girl looked up.

(the dog watched the girl leave, clutched in her mother’s arms)

\--

The second was a young widow weeping quietly into the earth. There was a thump next to her, a great furred body laying warm against her hip. A heavy head dropped into her lap, and a shaky giggle accompanied shaky hands as they stroked soft floppy ears.

(the dog stood and slipped out of sight just as the young widow heard a friend call for her, and moments later was engulfed in a hug)

\--

The dog watched a lot. It was what he was for. He could see most of the town from his den of headstones, and the living were more interesting to watch than the not. 

So he watched and he thought and he slid between there and not there and watched smoky paws reform and had a thought.

And the dog watched.

\--

The third was a graverobber, and all he saw were long sharp teeth.

(wolves are awful around here, said the townsfolk, and left the body for the carrion birds)

\--

Right before people began to leave, after the sixth landslide, someone saw a big dog in the cemetery no one owned. This was dismissed once everyone figured out there wasn't a wolf to add to their list of troubles. It had been years since the church was built, and there was no one who remembered the bones under the foundation stone.

\--

The people left, in small groups made smaller as they disappeared into the hills.

The last vanished from sight.

The dog stood _up._

\--

All children had to learn to walk on two feet and he was no exception. He thought he did alright there once he figured out how the spine was supposed to curve.

(he hadn't expected to be quite this tall)

Talking was a little harder, he sounded like he'd gargled glass for a living for a while and his laugh still sounded like a bark.

He was glad there wasn't anyone to see his first stumbling steps and not all the way right form (getting everything right when you couldn't see yourself was a bitch and a half of getting run out of three towns worth of practice)

\--

He picked the name not expecting to keep it. Matthew from the Book, traced by clumsy new fingers. Mason for the dog bones still underneath worked stone (he’s discovered he has a terrible sense of humor). It felt right though, the first times he spoke it, voice still half a rumble in his chest. 

\--

He didn’t think too much about years until someone asked how old he was. A blank stare later and he was just another whore’s orphan, with no one or nothing.

(gets an estimate for his age at the time though, about seventeen)

\--

Later, much later, after running and horses and bleeding in a saddle and a scar he thought about churches again. Turns out he remembered quite a few of the words, and that same patient head tilted stare translated well.

(the man handing him his vestments gave him a strange look for his quickly stifled snort at the sight of the white collar)

\--

The new Reverend came from the south on foot. There was some surprise over the on foot part, but no one thought much of the direction.

(the few who did assumed he was paying his respects)

\--

He slept on the second floor of the church. The stairs creaked dangerously the first time he walked up them, the air still heavy with the smell of ash. The wood stayed firm under his feet The furniture is in staringly good shape, given an entire fucking wall is missing. He’d slept in worse places. He set his worn pack down with a thump, and let his human form drop with it. No one should come here, the wood wails at the slightest hint of wind, no one will see. It’d be a blessed sight warmer in his fur, too. He’ll get the church fixed up and someday have a proper wall and full roof over his head. 

Matthew laid down to sleep very much not thinking about the foundations below him, bereft of bones of any kind.

\--

His first duty as the Reverend of Deadwood is a funeral.

Matthew just stared at his crucifix for a while, and wondered at the Almighty’s sense of humor.

\--

Later, not much later, he sat in a room with four strangers and a man called Matthew a killer and he blinked and thought absently of blood on his teeth. 

\--

The Reverend had a scar at the base of his skull.

Miriam was the one to find it, checking the dear idiot's head after yet another hit to it. It was very old, smooth under her fingertips, and placed right where the spine slips into the skull.

"How on earth did you survive this one?" The question tripped out of her mouth, too bruised and tired to properly censor herself. She saw Arabella look over worriedly from where she's tending to Aly, and caught a flicker of a blue eye from where Clayton rests with his hat pulled low.

The muscles under her fingers tensed briefly. 

"God looking out for his shepherds, I suppose."

She hummed an absent assent and the night moved on.

\--

It was a quiet night after a damn long day and a longer evening. The fire in their camp popped and crackled, occasionally flinging sparks toward the sky like it was trying to add to the stars. The group had stumbled across a cluster of rock formations as the sun sank below the horizon, and tucked themselves among them to keep out of the wind. Arabella and Aly were already lumps curled by the fire, Arabella's slightly wheezy snores muffled by the hat over her face. Aly might be asleep, Clayton had a hard time telling. 

He and Miriam were on half hearted watch, leaning against the rocks and staring into the dark. 

The Reverend, poor bastard, hadn't fallen asleep yet. Clayton could see his profile from the corner of his eye. He was sitting cross legged across the fire from them, chin propped on a gloved fist as he dozed, eyes half open. Clayton looks back out into the dark, quietly pleased at the light of the stars and moon illuminating the landscape. His own eyes are starting to get heavy not long after when he saw Miriam glance over her shoulder toward the fire and freeze. 

Cold spikes up his spine and he whipped around, hand going to his gun.

All he saw was Aly and Arabella, still asleep, and a startled Mason, jolting upright, eyes wide.

Eyes that reflected in the fire light in a way nothing human would. 

"What is it?" The Reverend asked, twisting to look at the blank rock behind him.

“Reverend?” Miriam asked, voice remarkably even.

"Ye-ees?" came the uncertain reply, as the man turned back to face them, wide eyes still with that unnatural shine and voice pitching high as he registered Clayton's hand near his gun.

“You know when I asked if there was anything about you we might need to know?”

A beat.

"I remember that, yes," came the reply, tone still uncertain, shoulders edging toward his ears.

“Why do you have eyes like a cat in the dark?”

A beat of silence.

“He what-” Aly started as he gave up on the pretense of sleep. Arabella jolted awake, looking a little wild around the eyes.

The Reverend promptly slapped a hand over his eyes with a squeaky yelp of _“Shit” _ that has Clayton relaxing with a soft snort. Miriam glanced at him sharply, but he just shrugged back. 

“I can ...explain?” 

Mason still had a hand over his eyes, but was peeking through his fingers, relaxing a bit as he noticed that Clayton had, only to tense up all over again as Aly and a now interested Arabella shifted around the fire to get a look. 

The fire popped. 

The Reverend took a steadying breath and dropped his hand. That strange yellow glow was still there, but now that Clayton wasn’t startled near out of his skin it just-looks like Matthew, soft eyes and a wry twist to his mouth. 

"Have you ever heard of church grims?"

\--

They haven’t.

\--

“You’re a dog?”

“That’s what you took away from that?” Aly said, side eyeing Arabella. She flushed a bit, fidgeting with her gloves. 

“Well he doesn’t really look like one-eye shine aside!” 

Matthew rubbed his mouth, trying desperately not to start giggling out of sheer relief. No one had gone for their guns, no one was trying to kill him or hurt him, the extent of the reaction was just confusion or, oddly, amusement.

“Well, Reverend, I have to say I hadn’t actually expected your puppy eyes to be quite so literal,” Miriam said, and Clayton actually choked on a laugh. 

“I could make them more literal,” Matthew replied, and froze. A story to explain odd eyes was one thing but actually being not-a-person in front of this odd little group he’d come to care for was quite a-fucking-nother. He could feel his heart begin to slam against his ribs as he made the mistake of making eye contact with Miriam as her face lit up. Arabella looked equally delighted by the concept, if doubtful, Aly looked like he’d just declared he could pluck the moon from the sky, and Clayton looked-well, like Clayton but he was pretty sure he could make out the faint crinkle around his eyes that meant he was laughing. 

He sent up a brief prayer and-

\--

There was a dog sitting where the Reverend had been.

Clayton was vaguely aware his expression currently resembled that of a landed fish, but there was a goddamn bigass dog where the Reverend had been.

The thing was massive, broad dark muzzle and short, floppy ears and thick muscle under dark, mottled grey fur. It-he was very still for a moment, those same reflective eyes unreadable in an unfamiliar face-then his mouth dropped open and a bright pink tongue lolled out and his tail wagged once. His shadow danced on the stone behind him, his edges blurring in the soft dark.

Arabella made a high pitched noise that had everyone looking toward her with alarm before registering the delighted expression and how she had her hands over her mouth. Clayton had a very brief moment to think Oh No before Arabella had all but flung herself next to the Reverend hands halfway up before visibly remembering herself. 

“May I-may I touch?” 

The Reverend, his blocky head taller Arabella with them both sitting, tilted toward her. Clayton then had the deeply surreal experience of watching Mrs. Arabella Whitlock scratch Reverend Matthew Mason behind the ears while the latter was a giant dog. What was his life. Aly had much the same expression, while Miriam looked rather like a cat in a room with a lot of very fat mice with nowhere to go.

It was an upsettingly familiar expression on her, honestly. 

“Well, my dear Reverend, I do thank you for entrusting us with this, but it is rather late and we have a long ride ahead of us tomorrow.”

There’s some grumbling from Arabella as she extracts herself, but otherwise she and Aly settled back down. The Reverend was human shaped again, watching normality resume with wide eyes that flickered between them, waiting for the hammer to come down. 

“You’re not actually the strangest thing we’ve seen. Most benign by far,” Clayton offered, watching the words hit like his own bullets. There was a beat of silence. The fire crackled, embers pulsing in the dark. 

The Reverend huffed a sort bark of a laugh, wiping a hand over his face. His scar, Clayton realized with a start, had stayed in both forms. 

“Thank you,” he said, in that soft, sincere way he had.

“Thank me by letting Miriam sleep, that woman is a fright when she hasn’t slept enough.”

“I heard that.”

“Not hearing you refute it though,” Clayton said, ambling back to his watch spot as Miriam settled by the fire. He’s alone for a long moment.

There’s a soft thump next to him, and warm fur brushed his hip.

Clayton smiled.

(the dog watched in the dark, his people safe beside and behind him and the clear night sky above)

\------------------


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the updated tags. This work is going to be marked complete but may occasionally get chapters added because I am having entirely too much fun with this. Thanks again to the UnDeadwood discord server, y'all continue to be enablers

\-----------------

"Reverend" Arabella says in the empty church one evening, her voice soft and strangely tight, "did you leave out a few details about how church grims are made?"

Oh. 

He forgets, sometimes, how quickly she can uncover things. He runs his hand over the back of his neck and immediately wishes he hadn't, watching her bright eyes lock on to the movement. 

"Nothing that seemed relevant?" Matthew offers, hand still clasped over the base of his skull, like if he leaves it there long enough she'll forget it's there. 

No such luck. He can practically see her remembering Miriam asking after a scar on his neck after one too many head wounds, and fine lady she may be she's seen too much death by now not to recognize a killing blow when she sees one. He's already wincing even as her hand flies up to her mouth, reassurances tumbling out of his mouth.

"I'm quite fine, my dear, it was a long time ago-"

The sentence cuts off with an _oomph_ as Arabella wraps steel cable arms around his torso in a tight embrace. The ferocity of it stuns him temporarily-she hugs like she's trying to suffocate the memory right out of him-before he gingerly loops his arms around her. Her face is burrowed against his chest like she's seeking assurance of his heart beat.

"I'm sorry," she says very quietly. He tilts his head to rest it against hers and if he shakes a little she never mentions it.

\---

"Do you even need a horse?" Aly asks, sprawled on the chair on Clayton's porch where he and Matthew had been banished from the kitchen to. Matthew blinks up at him from his seat against the railing, a book from Arabella's hoard of penny dreadfuls propped against his knee.

"To ride?" He asks, pulled mid scene from booby traps on pirate gold.

"Yeah, you could just keep pace on your own four legs right? Like a-" 

Clayton actually sticks his head out the door, eyebrow raised, at the high shriek of outrage.

"Did you just yell 'I'm not a sheepdog!', Reverend?"

"Well I can't keep pace with a horse!"

Aly wheezes from the ground where he slid out his chair, still laughing.

\---

There’s a dog’s skull in the Reverend’s room. 

Clayton had been helping the Reverend look for-something he couldn't even remember now- and now all he could do was stare at the object that had rolled out of the tattered old cloth that had bound it, tugged free before Matthew had noticed what he was holding. That he was still holding, frozen between the urge to fling the thing away and the equal desire to keep cradling it like it should have been before-

“Turns out you can dig up foundations,” Matthew says, fingers tracing the air above worn bone the same ginger way one checks for heat on a stovetop (and with that same distant impulse to touch). Clayton hadn’t heard him move.

“Took me a few years-I still feel guilty, of course, desecrating a house of the Lord-but I managed it in the end. There wasn’t much left of m-of the bones.”

Matthew isn't looking up, gaze fixed more on the cloth than anything, something strange in the set of his jaw. Clayton has the sudden, gut wrenching certainty that this was the first thing this man had done with his new-made hands, which was promptly followed by a sickening swoop of realization in his gut-

“That why you’re so hell bent on repairing this here building? If you pardon the phrasing,” he asks, voice somehow even. He keeps staring down at the skull, mind whirling between wondering where the rest of the bones were and the slightly hysterical observation that the Reverend had somehow kept that chipped front tooth in his human dentition.

The Reverend looks up from his own bleached skull in genuine confusion, lips parting slightly as his brows furrow. 

“No. No, this is-the only bones here are wood. I can-this was a house, I think-I think I might make it a home.”

He flushes slightly, as if the statement was something to be embarrassed over. Clayton stares at him for a long moment, before wordlessly, carefully, folding the cloth back around the treasure in his hands, setting it gently in the battered box he found it in. The Reverend just watches, that same strange look from earlier wiping the lingering confusion from his face. Clayton reaches up slowly, palm cupping the delicate curve of the new bone cathedral that houses the mind of this kind man. The Reverend lets him, brow beginning to furrow again before Clayton gently tugs him down to press their foreheads together. 

"You have a home here. Anyone says otherwise I'll shoot 'em." 

At this angle he can't quite see Matthew's eyes go wide but he feels the startled laughter that rattles through him, and he feels the corner of his own mouth tug into a small smile. 

(they just stand there for a while, after, breathing in the quiet)

\---

No one robs graves in Deadwood anymore. 

The Reverend gets twitchy about people fucking with the graveyard. Given the frankly upsetting number of undead that tend to pop up nowadays like ambulatory weeds very few people hassle him about it. 

(No one fucks with the Reverend in general anymore either, at some point all but the most clueless had twigged on to the sensation of tugging on an increasingly less tolerant wolf’s ears every time they did it-and ashing Wild Bill Hickok in the main thoroughfare certainly helped the impression)

The problem, of course, is that people, especially the assholes that make up Deadwood, don’t really think to bother to mention this to some dumb fucks who wandered in from out of town with some suspiciously long packages tied to their horses. 

-

“What the hell are you _doing?!”_

Gus nearly fucking fell onto the partially exposed coffin at the outraged bellow, whipping around to glare up at Randall, who was supposed to be fuckin looking out not watching him work-before he registered that the voice belonged to, of all people, the priest.

The priest he'd seen in town, Reverend M something or another, all soft eyes and kindly smiles.

The unarmed, alone priest. Randall, useless lookout but a big bastard (though the priest himself ain’t too small) is already heading for him, his own shovel lifted. They can always make it a double grave when they backfill.

Gus goes back to shoveling and hears a wet _thump._ He winces a bit, but you don’t get this job with a weak constitution.

“I asked what you were doing.”

A shriek rips out of Gus as he flings himself sideways against the soft dirt wall of the grave, staring wide-eyed up at the Reverend, a tall shadow barely lit by their dim lanterns. 

"Wh-what'd you do to Randall?" Gus finds himself pressing his shoulders hard against the dirt, suddenly _knowing_ that being buried like the poor bastard at his feet was better than whatever the shade staring at him was gonna do.

The priest sighs, his eyes catching lantern light like gold disks-

and teeth bloom like flowers in the dark.

(It's rather a flaw in the human alarm system that you have to breathe to scream.)

-

Ain’t nobody fucks with the graves in Deadwood, especially the new ones.

\---

Mr Swearengen still has jobs for the lot of them sometimes, and sometimes only for one or two. This one is supposed to be simple enough, and the Reverend and Clayton head out to chase off some idiots trying to dig too close to things best left alone.

It really was supposed to be simple.

-

The first bullet hurts, slamming into his shoulder to halt against his collarbone. The second clips his forearm as he reaches for his gun. The third cracks into the rock next to his ear.

He hears a muffled grunt of pain from his right and-

(he’s always hated this form, it’s just smoke and empty eye sockets and death and dissociation. 

but he can’t get hurt (more) in it)

So, dark eyes locking on the fuckers shooting him and his, he-

lets 

go.

-

Clayton is pissed off and bleeding and firing and he feels more than hears the impact of the Reverend slamming his back to the stone next to him for cover and he can see blood on the rocks and a bullet shatters next to their heads and Clayton lets out an involuntary grunt as shards bite into his cheek and he sees Mason go rigid.

And the Reverend dissolves into a mass of howling shadows and shattering boom of bells loosely coalescing into the shape of a dog with an almost too solid bare skull- 

(there’s not actually a lot of screaming after that)

-

“We’re alright, Matthew, we’re alright,” he murmurs, gently cupping the smoke wreathed skull, blood smearing his skin (and trying so hard not to think of how he’d held this same skull before, clean and wrapped in cloth). Clayton is very much not looking at the bundle of still twitching intestines scrawled across the ground a few yards away. 

The bone is smooth and vibrating faintly, but the howls and the bells have subsided to a low pulsing hum, a sound he can nearly taste.

“It’s okay.”

The jaw opens slightly and he hears an inhale rasp-

Warm fur blooms under his fingertips. 

-

Clayton had not previously aware that dogs could do judgmental stares this well. 

"What," he says defensively, very aware of the clumsy bandages only mostly doing their job of keep all the blood _in,_ "it's not like you have hands right now."

The Reverend snorts, letting his head drop back to the ground, muzzle wet with blood. His fur is clumped from splattered viscera and slightly less clumsily wrapped bandages is making his grey fur stick up in tufts. He looks fairly ridiculous, honestly. 

“Think you can change?”

A soft whine is the only reply. 

“Well fuck.” A beat. “Guess you’re gonna get to ride on the back of the saddle.”

Matthew’s head snaps up.

-  
Clayton “Coffin” Sharpe rides back into town sans a Reverend, with a massive, bandged up dog strapped to the Reverend’s horse. He is equally battered and bandaged, and the town just sort of assumes the Reverend is dead.

The dog is weird though.

Then the Reverend is out and about town a day later, moving stiffly. The dog is nowhere to be seen. 

(Some of the brighter souls start to put two and two together. A few even get four)

\---

There's a dog in Deadwood called Preacher. The people who know why won't say, and the ones who don't assume it's because of the thing's deep boom of a bark, rarely voiced.

He tends to hang around the entry of the church, or flopped on the worn planks of the porches of the Gem Saloon or the Bella Union (or wherever certain members of Deadwood are at any given time). Preacher is a great big bastard of a dog, and if not for his odd grey fur he'd be mistaken for a bear even more often than he is. 

Most folk ignore him, others are delighted to sit and carefully stroke dense soft fur, others still will tip their hats absently, and get an equally absent tail wag in response. 

(Preacher got shot once, after removing several fingers from a trick causing trouble at the Bella Union and his buddy didn't take well to that. The dog vanished for a week and the tricks vanished forever, as the ladies didn't take too well to the incident.

Nobody said anything about how carefully the Reverend held himself during the service that same week.)

\---

The idiot introduces himself as Robert “The Rope” Dalton. His leather coat has embossed silver buttons and embroidery. His boots are _shiny._ Clayton is genuinely stunned he hadn’t been shot yet. Clayton is also keeping his hat tipped low over his eyes, half hidden by the Reverend’s bulk in a corner table of the Gem Saloon because said idiot had all but announced himself as a bounty hunter.

“I’m sorry, he said his name was what?” Arabella says.

“Robert, “The Rope”, Dalton,” Aly repeats. Miriam stares hard at her hand of cards, visibly biting her lip. 

“Did, did he actually say it just like that?” Arabella says in a slightly strangled voice. Mason brings a fist up to his mouth, grin peeking out around the edges even as Clayton kicks him lightly under the table, tipping his head to get him to take his turn. 

“Yup.”

Arabella breaks, cackling into the worn wood of the table, barely muffled by her crossed arms. Mason actually giggles, fist pressing harder against his mouth to try and stifle it. Miriam gives up on trying to suppress a smile. Clayton snorts quietly.

“The hell kind of a nickname is that?”

“Bold words for a man called-ow!” Aly yelps, glaring at Miriam. She just raises an eyebrow at him and he subsides with a grumble. Clayton glares from under his hat, shifting further into the Reverend's shadow. 

The idiot is lounging against the bar, looking idly around the room. Somehow the local hoopleheads haven’t started in on him yet, possibly because of the Colt in full view at his hip, possibly because it was still fairly early in the day. 

Then Dalton’s eye catches on the Reverend, white collar bright against the black under his leather jacket. Clayton sees him start to head over and just sighs. Mason flicks a concerned glance at him and notices who he was watching just as Dalton saunters up.

“Surprised to see a priest in this place,” Dalton drawls, apparently disregarding the flat stare Miriam has fixed on him, proving how short his life was gonna be in this town. Mason’s face flattens out, and Clayton stiffens. 

"Man of God ought to keep himself clean," his gaze drifts from Arabella to Aloysius to Miriam with barely veiled distaste, skimming over Clayton without recognition, "of such company. Does not the good book say 'Be not deceived: Evil companionships corrupt good morals.' Reverend?" 

The Reverend tilts his head, lips curling into what might be mistaken for a smile were it not for the coldness in his eyes. 

“Something like that, yes,” he replies, “Though we may have differing opinions on what makes good company given your…..manners.”

Dalton drops a hand toward his gun and the Reverend bares his teeth in a silent snarl and for just a blink they are entirely too sharp-

Clayton sees the idiot jerk backwards and resists the urge to swear. His own hand is resting on the grip of his own pistol, and he can see that Arabella’s hand has dropped below the table.

“I’ll-uh, I’ll leave you to your game then,” Dalton says, hand moving from his gun as he backs away. 

“Go with God,” Mason says, that unnerving smile back on his face. 

They watch the man scuttle back to the bar. Several of the patrons at the nearby tables had been watching the exchange with the same air of watching a man light a cigarette while standing in gunpowder, and turn back to their drinks when the anticipated boom fizzles out. 

“What did he say his name was? Bob?” Arabella’s nail taps against the table, gleaming sharp against the dark wood. 

“I could’ve sworn it was Albert.” Miriam replies absently, and the tension nearly audibly breaks when Aly snorts with laughter. Mason and Clayton’s shoulders relax simultaneously and they all go back to their game. 

(Mason loses very badly)

-

Somehow the dumbass doesn’t get shot and robbed in the street, and he slips out of the crew’s minds. 

Until that Sunday.

-

The congregation is tiny, and the church roof still a bit iffy during storms and the faint scent of burned wood had never dissipated. The few folk of Deadwood who attend the Reverend’s sermons don’t seem to mind though, and settle happily enough into the battered pews. 

The service goes as per usual, although a new face in a fancy-ass coat is among their number, drawing the occasional odd look. No one thinks anything of it until after the service and the fella in the fancy coat walks right up to the Reverend and slaps a hand to the Reverend’s neck.

The Reverend _screams._

The noise is shattered bones and shredded throats and cracked bells and the Reverend collapses in a mass of agonized twisting shadow even as the man in the coat backs away with a triumphant smile on his face-

-right up until the first gun is out and pointing at him.

The empty eyes of a sawed off double barrel shotgun stares him down from the grip of Miss Katy, a snarl curling her painted lips. Miss Brittany bolts out the door, bellowing for Miss Miriam as the rest in their (honestly quite tiny) congregation pull pistols out of various pockets. Mrs Peters slips around the man in the coat to kneel carefully near the writhing shadow, speaking in low, soothing tones despite her sheet white face.

There’s a flash of a bone white skull before the mass let out a high, thin whine and the familiar shape of Preacher is huddling on the wooden floor, shaking. 

“You’re alright Reverend, you’ll be fine,” Mrs Peters keeps repeating, delicately setting her hand on a furred shoulder. 

-

“What are you doing? That’s a demon!” 

This isn’t supposed to happen. He’s always right, the charm always reveals evil and those it had betrayed protect themselves. They aren’t supposed to turn on him! He opens his mouth to say something, anything that will get these people to turn their weapons to the true threat-

And then a woman in a purple dress and a man in a dark coat and hat come slamming through the door.

-

Miriam bolts for Matthew (who looks like a dog right now in front of everyone that’s _bad_ everyone can _see him_) and Clayton storms to the gussied up jackass everyone has guns on.

“What the _fuck_ did you do to him?” Clayton snarls, muzzle of his pistol pressing hard against the hinge of Dalton’s jaw. He can see something clenched in one of the man’s raised hands and he snatches it, something in his face convincing the man not to fight him.

Clayton chances a look down to examine the object, trusting Miss Katy’s shotgun and expression to keep the idiot from doing anything (and all the other guns too). 

It looks weirdly like an eye, is his first thought, and his skin crawls. It’s a rough carved little thing made from stained wood and copper with and inset pale stone with a slash down the center. He wants nothing more than to summon the same fire he’d seen Matthew bring to life and ash the thing. 

“What does this do?” He wants to dig the gun against the man’s jaw until it grinds through bone but a man needs teeth to talk. 

"It-it reveals the demon's true face."

Clayton stares. 

The dead man’s face drains of color.

-

Miriam vaguely hears Clayton say “We’re gonna go have a talk outside,” followed by the crack of a pistol butt on a damn fool’s temple. She chances a glance towards Clayton to see him and several of the men dragging Dal-Daily-String-whatever his name was bodily out the door before she turns her attention to the shaking dog she’s kneeling beside.

“Reverend?” She runs her hands over his shoulders and sides, checking for injury. “Matthew are you hurt?”

Matthew shivers again and then it’s fabric under her hands instead of fur. He’s sheet white and clammy, and it takes some maneuvering between her and Mrs Peters to get him sitting upright.

“Sorry, sorry,” he keeps mumbling, eyes down and shoulders hunching and looking so very small for a man his size. Miriam meets Mrs Peters gaze over his head, and is gratified to see that despite her pale face her eyes are concerned and her hands gentle and there is no fear there. 

“You’re alright dear,” Miriam says, “just breathe.”

“I-I suppose you have some-questions?” He rasps, stubborn bastard that he is. 

“Oh, a few, “ Mrs Peters says, “I’ve been meaning to ask how you keep that white collar of yours so clean.” Miriam decides that this woman is now one of her new best friends and that she needed to be introduced to Arabella immediately. 

Matthew stares at her with huge brown eyes.

There is a single sharp gunshot outside, and it says something about their lives that both she and Matthew recognize the sound of Clayton’s pistol. 

“He didn’t have to-”

“Yes he damn well did,” Miriam snaps.

Mrs Peters nods, “We just got used to you, Reverend, we don’t need another priest.”

“But I’m…” Matthew just sort of gestures to himself, still folded inward like he’s expecting a kick or worse. 

“I will admit to being curious as to the-peculiarities of your being but it’s certainly none of my business unless you mean to run around murdering willy nilly like that little incident a while back.”

Miriam is definitely introducing this woman to Arabella. The Reverend is just blinking at her, before looking helplessly over at Miss Katy and Miss Brittany, the only ones left in the church. 

“Well, you’re no undead Will Bill Hickok,” Miss Katy offers with a shrug, sawed off shotgun vanished back beneath her skirts. Miss Brittany nods. 

The Reverend lets out a startled bark of laughter. Mrs Peters stands, brushing off her skirts, reassured that the man isn’t too badly off. 

“I’ll see you next Sunday, then,” she says, and ushers the other two women out. Matthew stares after them, still looking slightly stunned. Miriam is rather surprised by the non-reaction herself, but well. Deadwood’s seen more than its fair share of strange things and people had learned not to fuss about the benign ones. 

Clayton reappears in the doorway, something still flat and cold lingering in her face until he fully registers that the Reverend is upright and talking. 

“Good to see the effects were temporary,” he says, walking over to plop down cross legged to the Reverend, apparently oblivious of the raised eyebrow he receives from Miriam. She sighs a bit and stands, patting Matthew on the shoulder.

“I’m off to go let Arabella and Aly know you’re alright before they do something foolish,” she says, “and we’ll bring back some booze because I’m quite sure you’re still hurting, Reverend.” The last is said over her shoulder as she shuts the door behind her, before Matthew can protest.

Matthew just sits there, half leaning against Clayton, on the floor of the church he’d rebuilt, quietly reeling over a congregation apparently unphased by their preacher being something utterly inhuman. It has been a very strange year. 

Clayton gently taps the side of his head against Matthew’s, knocking his own hat askew. 

“Told you you have a home,” he murmurs. 

\---

(There is a dog’s skull under the bed in the Reverend’s room, wrapped carefully in velvet, and settled in an engraved wood and brass box. There is no dust on the lid) 

\------------------


End file.
